Synopses & Reviews
The events of September 11th changed the world irreversibly, in ways that have reverberated throughout our cultural and media landscape. The War on Terror traces these reverberations through the medium of television, offering analyses of key programs and series that engage with, or are haunted by, the aftermath of September 11 and the “war on terror” that has followed. Individual chapters examine dramas representing the invasion of Iraq, such as Occupation and Generation Kill; war comedies, such as Gary, Tank Commander; documentaries such as the BBC Panorama’s coverage of the September 11th attacks; and September 11th in popular series such as CSI: New York. The book concludes with an extended reflection on contemporary docudrama and an interview with docudrama filmmaker Peter Kosminsky.
About the Author
Stephen Lacey is professor emeritus of drama, film and television at the University of South Wales, and the author of several books on UK television drama. He is an associate editor of Critical Studies and Television.Derek Paget is a visiting fellow at the University of Reading, an associate editor of Studies in Documentary Film, and an editorial board member of Studies in Theatre and Performance.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
Stephen Lacey and Derek Paget
2. Ways of Showing, Ways of Telling
Derek Paget
3. Embedded dramaturgy – representing the ‘war on terror’ from within: Ten Days to War, The Mark of Cain and Occupation
Stephen Lacey
4. Post 9/11 American Television Drama: 24 and Generation Kill as Melodrama
Steve Lipkin
5. The comedy of terror: Gary: Tank Commander and the TV sitcom’s ‘discourse of impropriety’.
Bruce Bennett
6. The Paranoid Style’s traumatic speculations of suffering
Hugh Ortega Breton
7. Mac and Monotheism: Remembering 9/11, Surviving Trauma and Mourning Work in CSI: NY
Janet McCabe
8. Britz, Contemporary British National Identity and the ‘War on Terror’
Steve Blandford
9. ‘It Won’t Be Iraq They’ll Remember Me For, Will It?’: Tony Blair and Dramatisations of The War On Terror
Stella Bruzzi
10. Panorama's coverage of 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror'
David McQueen
11. Interview with Peter Kosminsky
Peter Kosminsky and Derek Paget
12. Texts cited
13. Bibliography